An Approach to Mixture Design and Cost Analysis for Cement Pastes Composed of Class C Fly Ashes for Better Sustainable Construction

Abstract

The increase in population and need for shelter demand a huge amount of concrete production. These construction activities cause environmental problems and global warming continues to threaten the world. In this study, the properties of cement paste composites containing high proportions of fly ash are intended for use as sustainable ecological products in various civil engineering applications to minimize the worse effects of building construction. The physical, mechanical, and durability properties of pure cement paste composed of fly ash were investigated. New insight is presented in this study to show how to use fly ash in the paste for a wide range of workability with better optimization of physical and mechanical characterization with cost performance and to design the composites to achieve specific engineering properties. The proposed approach can help researchers model the pastes for various ranges of workability and strength. This modeling approach can potentially be used to construct mixture design criteria for such composites. The unconfined compressive strength (UCS) showed very good results with the porosity of the paste, UCS = a × (1 − porosity)b; thus, this equation can be used for the strength determination of pastes at various workability ranges.